The Prestige
by FelinesAndPhoenixes
Summary: Each magic trick is made up of three parts... Slightly AU post-Changes. Implied Dresden/Murphy.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **_The Prestige  
><em>**Fandom: **_The Dresden Files  
><em>**Summary: **_Every magic trick is made up of three parts…..  
><em>**Disclaimer: **_Opening quote and title from the movie The Prestige. I own nothing that you recognize, and very little that you don't. This is the nature of fanfic.  
><em>**Pairing: **_Implied Harry/Murphy  
><em>**Characters: **_Primarily Harry, but with a good bit of Murphy, Molly and Bob.  
><em>**Spoiler Warning: **_Mild spoilers for Ghost Story, I guess, even though I've never read all of it. I have a friend that told me most of what happened, so this is going to be randomly my take on it, which is going to make it strictly non-cannon.  
><em>**Dedication: **_For KatHawkins, who is probably the only person silly enough to like my fanfiction, especially when it comes to Dresden._

**Part 1: Prologue- The Pledge**

"_Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"."_

Something ordinary…..a deck of cards, a bird or a man. I am just a man. My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. I can't tell you that there won't be something waiting to eat your face if you do. It seems like the deeper and deeper we dig into things, the more trouble we get into, and the more we incur the wrath of things that are bigger and stronger than we are. Something that I've learned over the years is that just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't something scary lurking out there ready to eat you.

I am ordinary. I am just a man. Well, a wizard, but…..an ordinary one. I can't save the world. I can't even save the people I care about sometimes. Sometimes the forces of evil are just stronger than we are. And I'm not a hero. Heroes keep their promises. See, the good guys don't always win. And sometimes people get hurt, and sometimes they even die. You'll learn one day that you can't save the world. No one can. Michael just keeps telling me to have faith. Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you really are, even when there's not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are. Again, I'm not a. A hero, I mean.

A hero would have been able to keep his best friend from almost being killed. A hero would have been able to keep the mother of his child from dying. A hero…..would be able to somehow raise that child and save the world at the same time. With one hand tied behind his back. I'm not a hero. I'm just an ordinary man.

Ordinary people are capable of great things sometimes, though. Everyone has heard one of those stories where some little old lady lifted a car off of her grandkids or something. Ordinary people have to protect those that they care about, because the world is full of monsters and demons, and there are very few heroes. I want to be able to protect the people that I care about….like Thomas and Molly, or the rest of Michael's family, Justine…even if only because she means so much to Thomas. Murphy….

But sometimes things happen and we aren't able to save the day. Sometimes people get hurt, and even though everyone says that it's no one's fault, it is and you know it. You're convinced that if you would have done more, someone would have not been hurt, or would still be with you. Shiro Yoshimo….

Everyone makes sacrifices, and everyone takes risks. And you might not realize how many risks you are taking until something bad happens to you. Until you've done everything that you can, and things are starting to go well for you, even though you're a little discouraged from time to time. When the woman you love is finally willing to try… and then…..the unthinkable happens. And you're shot. And you're coming up with all of this internal monologue while you're waiting for…well, you're already dead, so what are you waiting for? Whatever comes next…..? Hell? The hope of Heaven? When you realize that the light at the end of the tunnel is gone and you're alone. Because you're really not special at all, are you? You're just an ordinary man.

**Chapter 1, end.  
><strong>_I don't think it was very good, personally. But it does emphasize that Harry is just an ordinary man. The Pledge. ^_^ Reviews make me write more. :p_


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: **The Prestige, Part 2- The Turn  
><strong>Author's Notes: <strong>It's been a really long time since I worked on this, but I'm going to try to get the entire thing finished in the next couple of days. You wouldn't think that a short fic would really take me this long, would you? I'm really sorry, to anyone that is still waiting for an update.  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>I own nothing that you recognize, and very little that you don't.

**The Prestige, Part 2: The Turn**

"_The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled." _

All people are capable of extraordinary things. I don't think I've ever done anything particularly fantastic in my life… Even though I have done what a lot of people consider to be a lot of good, I think that I've done enough things wrong to make up for it. In the long run, nothing that I have accomplished could be considered extraordinary. In the end, what started this whole thing was me doing the most mundane thing I could have ever done. I died.

Like I said, dying is the most mundane thing that you can ever do. It's the inevitable end to all life. Nothing that you can do about it. Or so we're told. And that's where this little tale gets interesting.

I died. People mourned, life went on. My friends are the type of people that have to be able to move on when something like this happens. If you spend too much time distracted by something like this, you're just as dead as the person that you're mourning, and no one, even though they're dead, wants to be the reason that their friends were dead too.

I spent a lot of time dead. Kind of saved the world. That was a trick, in and of itself, because people kind of have a hard time believing that they're really seeing ghosts. Even when you get a medium to tell them everything that you need to communicate, they don't want to buy into it at first. Then they start to believe. Suddenly, you're on your way to actually making some progress.

If they hadn't listened, none of us would be here right now. I finally convince them that it's me, and that was hell. Murphy didn't want to buy into it, and she was the holdout. But we finally won her over.

Then, all hell breaks loose. Mort gets kidnapped by some body-snatching bitch. Just one more problem to deal with, like the universe is looking at me saying "screw you specifically." I have to save him. It's the right thing to do, it's the necessary thing to do. So I amass an army. I get together some ghosts and off we go to rescue Mort. And of course, that doesn't quite work out the way we planned. How unusual.

Body-snatching bitch has to ruin the whole thing. She absorbs the power of the spirit army, and decides that she's gonna make a move on Butters.

And when you think it can't get any worse, you're wrong. Molly goes after the bitch, who decides that Molly's is a much more useful body to have. And like hell is that going to happen. So I kind of hop into Molly's brain. That bitch isn't taking my apprentice, and isn't getting my town. I can take her, dead or not. I'm willing to go through hell for her….and I do. And when I'm trying to save Molly, and my entire world, it just gets worse.

The universe has taken me, Harry Dresden, and allowed me to do something extraordinary. I'm a fully functioning ghost, and I'm saving the world. I know I can do it, but I don't really want to know how. How is just going to cause more trouble. So I don't go looking for the answers. I'd rather live in denial. That's how people are.

You don't go looking for secrets. You want to be fooled.

But I don't get that luxury. Because that's when I find out what really happened.

**Sorry this has taken so long. And this is probably especially anticlimactic. But I'm going to have it finished in a few days, so there's that. **

**The first two chapters were always meant to be mostly narration and summary, and the last chapter is where stuff actually happens, so bear with me, if you can. **


End file.
